Opinions

After the recent debacle between Apple and Google over allowing Google Voice in App Store, there has been a back and forth argument of who caused what. Apple claims that it’s still studying Google’s Voice App but the search engine giant argues the opposite: that Phill Schiller himself rang up Google saying that it wouldn’t allow a native Google Voice App on the iPhone. While the issue is being sorted out between the two with some kind intervention from the FCC, we’d like to get your take on the issue: do you still trust Apple to approve a Google Voice compatible App or is Google’s claim more than enough App Store drama? Sound off in the comments.

When the keynote was given for Firmware 3.0, a crowd of developers applauded the dozens of features that would not only make development easier but also open up more APIs to create even more robust Apps. Consumers were lavished with just as many non development features, the biggest being the highly anticipated MMS functionality and Internet tethering. A list of carriers appeared on screen but absent from them was the biggest one of all: AT&T. some were shocked and others, not so much. The carrier has had difficulty keeping up with the data demands of iPhone users already but for something as rudimentary as multi media messaging, the texting equivalent of sending an email, there was no excuse. AT&T has dragged its feet on bringing MMS functionality to iPhone users but the big question still remains: when will tethering be officially available? We’d like to hear your take on this issue, are you considering dropping AT&T for another carrier that actually offers features most smartphone users enjoy or are you going to wait out the storm and be that much happier when MMS and tethering are enabled on your iPhone? Sound off in the comments.

The App Store recently celebrated it’s first birthday and we oogle at the tens of thousands of Apps available. We take a look back at our favorites.

Tweetie This by far has got to be one of the best Twitter clients there is. It makes managing my load of tweets easier and I can track the latest happenings in the tech world as they happen. The only thing lacking is Push Notification which is a universal complaint across all Twitter clients right now but the intuitive interface more than makes up for it.

NetNewsWire A port of the very popular online and Mac based RSS reader, this App helps streamline my daily workflow by allowing me to catch up on the news during my off time. While not the most full featured RSS reader, its ability to sync with a Newsgator account and back to NetNewsWire on my Mac is simply unmatched.

Evernote Responsible for a huge portion of my writing, Evernote simply just works. It acts as a central hub for all all my creative ideas and can sync all of this to an Evernote account online and then to my… more...

An app getting a lot of attention lately is an app called Birdhouse. Birdhouse is a unique Twitter application for the iPhone with the purpose of captureing your ideas for Twitter posts with the intention of perfecting them over time.

You can save and rate as many drafts as you like and sort them by time or by rating. You can also add multiple accounts which is something a lot of Twitter users like.

Once you’ve tweaked your tweet, you can publish it from Birdhouse and view an archive of published Birdhouse tweets.

I have received a few emails that this just isn’t an app that that is worth the $3.99 especially with the iPhone 3.0 software soon to be released. So tell me - what do you think about this new app? Leave your opinions in the comments.

All the usual suspects are on the list: cut and paste, Spotlight, tethering etc. The more interesting thing about the list isn’t what is there but how basic the stuff on the list is. It’s basically fifteen items of “Wy the hell hasn’t this been here since the first iPhone came out?” A little depressing really but it is important to remember that the iPhone excels at usability. Sure a lot of phones can do everything on the list but none of them do it very easily.

If you look hard enough you can find a lot of annoyances with the iPhone, why we just posted a story earlier about 8 iPhone annoyances. Of course there are obvious annoyances and not so obvious annoyances. For an example of not so obvious annoyances consider the decline button. You know, the button you use to send people straight to voicemail. Now contemplate if the button is in the right place. Shawn Blanc has done just that. From the article:

There is one thing that I still have not gotten used to: the location of the ‘Decline’ and ‘Answer’ buttons when there’s an incoming call and the phone’s screen is not locked. This throws me off every single time.

That is just the tip of the iceberg. Shawn spends several paragraphs of careful argumentation on the topic. The post (iPhone’s Misplaced Decline Button?) is well reasoned, well written and well worth reading. The only downside of Shawn’s xcellent observation is after reading it the decline button, which most of us never gave a second thought to, will now bug you all the time.

John Gruber has a nice piece up on the recently concluded Mobile World Conference. John grabs some of the best quotes emanating from various CEO’s pie holes and susses out the deeper meaning. And that meaning is: Crap the iPhone is killing us. Well that’s what I got out of it, John’s conclusion differed, he thinks what the CEOs were trying to say was:

Looking at more recent history, we can look at the iPod. Didn’t you just get so sick of the stories predicting its inevitable doom because it didn’t have features, such as FM radio? And every time a new media player came out that had any of those feature it was touted as an iPod killer. And yet they all failed and the iPod is still the marketshare and mindshare leader by a street. Clearly it’s not all about features.

Daniel Eran Dilger is full of righteous indignation about the attacks of Apple’s multitouch patent. You know, the idea that either Apple doesn’t really own the patent or that there was some prior art that negates the patent. Mr. Dilger lays is out right away:

According to a wide range of frothy mouthed pundits, Apple has announced patented ownership of “multitouch,” and will now destroy the future we deserve by forcing all competitors to stop using a basic concept that was already in wide use long before Apple ever demonstrated the iPhone. They’re wrong, here’s why.

And it just gets better from there. Roughly Drafted takes a bevy of claims about multitouch as reported by bloggers and dissects them thoroughly. Along the way he manage to work in Saturday Night Live (the 70s version) and Apple’s legal troubles with Microsoft back in the day. It’s a well done article and worth your time.

The great thing about predicting anyone of the top three iPhone rumors is that sooner or later you’ll be right. It is a little like predicting tomorrow will be cooler than today. IT might take a sometime but sooner or later the temperature will drop and you’ll be correct. Once that happens you can amaze your friends by your psychic powers.

Today’s predictor of the predictable is Mike Abramsky. He predicts Apple will release a cheaper iPhone with scaled back features to appeal to a broader base. That is undoubtably what most companies would do but Apple doesn’t always go down the most predictable path. Where’s the mid priced expandable tower every other computer manufacturer sells in Apple’s Mac lineup? And you surely remember that TIm Cook said that Apple wasn’t interested in competing in the low cost phone game.

Mike Abramsky seems certain that the low priced iPhone is Apple’s next move. So certain that he’s got the specs for both the as yet unrevealed cheap iPhone and a new flagship iPhone. Specs that are more...